


Welcome Home

by teenage_hustler



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst and Romance, F/M, POV Second Person, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-10
Updated: 2018-05-10
Packaged: 2019-05-04 15:36:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14596158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teenage_hustler/pseuds/teenage_hustler
Summary: It has been a long time, but finally, you are going home.I originally wrote this for the 2011 DMHG Fic Exchange (on Livejournal at the time, now backed up on Dreamwidth). I remember; I wrote most of this while I was on a bus travelling from Tokyo to Hiroshima to visit a good friend/course mate at the time. I wrote another fic I am particularly proud of at the same time during that bus ride as well. Isn't it amazing where inspiration can strike?Anyway, a word of warning: there is a torture scene in this fic. I do not personally think it is particularly graphic (hence why I did not mark the warning above), but the character is hurt, and their injuries are described... just not particularly graphically. If anybody who reads this feels that the warning should be there, please do let me know.





	Welcome Home

~*~

You have never been so uncomfortable before in your life.

You are sitting in a small-ish chair, surrounded by other chairs of identical calibre, all contained within a transportation vessel that has been lovingly referred to as an ‘aeroplane’ by a very clear Muggle enthusiast-type Ministry official from your own country in the elaborate owl he sent you a few days prior. Apparently the American Muggles have a less sophisticated spelling for the word – ‘airplane’ – which clearly ignored the Greek origins of the prefix ‘aero-’ meaning ‘air or wind’, but you suppose it is a better term for the simpler minds of your country’s cross-Atlantic brethren.

You hear a voice, berating you for making such narrow-minded judgements on a group of people that you know nothing about besides what is published in biased newspapers, and cannot help but smile.

According to the same Muggle-loving Ministry official, the chair you are sitting on is among the best chairs that this bizarre aerodynamic (or ‘airdynamic’, as you assume the Americans would be more comfortable referring to it as) contraption has to offer, and somewhere behind you are rows and rows of chairs that are barely wide enough for the average-sized posterior (let alone the millions of above-average-sized posteriors out there) and have so little leg room that they evoke the feeling of being a sardine in a can better than any other real-life experience. Your chair, at least, reclines.

To be fair, you rationalise, your discomfort is probably largely due to the pain that you are in. Your every muscle aches from abuse and exertion. Your left shoulder is particularly tender. It is because of your brittle condition that you are suffering these uncomfortable conditions in the first place, since Apparating or taking a Portkey were not feasible options for you.

However, at the moment your discomfort is immaterial, even to you. Because as far as you are concerned, you have never felt as lucky as you do at that moment. After days upon weeks upon months of wishing for this day, it has finally come. You are going back. You are going to see her again.

You recall the night before you left, eighteen months ago. You went to her house, and she started to make dinner. She likes cooking, for some reason that you cannot fathom, but you have to admit that she is pretty good at it. She has completely changed your opinion of home-made spaghetti bolognaise vs. 5-star restaurant spaghetti bolognaise (in short, the restaurant stuff might use better-quality ingredients, but it lacks the heart of the home-made stuff, and that heart somehow made the home-made stuff taste better). So you sat in the kitchen, watching her preparing ingredients or whatever it was she was doing, and at one point, as she stood in front of the sink, she seemed to stop moving suddenly and bow her head. She is normally such a strong, in-control, independent person, that seeing her look so vulnerable was surreal. You approached her from behind, wrapped your arms around her, leant your head against her shoulder and asked her if she was okay. She shook her head vigorously, hitting you in the face several times with her unruly bushy hair. You tried to offer her words of comfort, but she did not seem to want to hear them. She turned around in your arms, and before you knew it she was kissing you with a sort of unbridled desperation you had not seen in her since the first time you had kissed. But you felt her desperation, and you started kissing her back just as wantonly. You tugged at each other’s clothing, anxious to feel skin-on-skin contact as soon as possible. Thoughts of dinner were immediately forgotten.

“Don’t go,” she whispered, quietly, afterwards.

You were wrapped around her. You love how soft she is all over. Soft hair, soft arms, soft stomach. Sometimes she says that she would like to be firmer in places, but you selfishly hope she never gets her wish. Her physical softness is such a pleasant contrast to her mental hardness and determination, and you draw great comfort from both of these juxtaposing characteristics.

It was bizarre, therefore, that she was showing this sort of emotional weakness.

“I have to go,” you said.

“No you don’t,” she disagreed. “Not really.”

Technically, she was correct. Indeed, the fact that anybody from their country was going to assist in this faraway war was the source of great political debate and outrage. When the Ministry had first suggested conscription, the protests had been so loud and boisterous that the idea had been quickly abandoned, except for when it came to men and women of the appropriate age who had been on Voldemort’s side during the war in their country. These people had been given a choice: fight in this war, or undergo a 3-year house arrest. Many had accepted the house arrest option without hesitation, but you were going to fight. On paper, it looked for all intents and purposes as though you had made the decision to go, but you did not see it like that.

“This is the only way,” you said, stroking that obscenely bushy hair of hers. “If I chose house arrest, I would only be choosing to save my own undeserving hide again, instead of fighting for what I believe in. I believe in what I’ll be fighting for. How else can I repent for my past mistakes? Or my past beliefs?”

“You can stay here, with me,” she answered immediately, her arms tightening around you. “I forgive you, Draco,” she adds. “Isn’t that enough?”

You sighed and laid your head against her chest. “The fact that you forgive me means more to me than anything else. But you know as well as I that I need to forgive myself as well. And I can’t do that unless I give something back. I have to fight in this war. I know you know that.”

It was her turn to sigh. “I do know it,” she admits, “and I know how selfish and pathetic I’m being. But you make me selfish and pathetic.”

It never did seem like a fair trade, you muse now as you try to ignore the snoring older gentleman in the seat next to you. According to her, you make her selfish and pathetic, yet she only ever made you stronger, better. It still baffles you at times, to think that she, of all people, was the woman you fell in love with. If anyone had told you that your post-Hogwarts working relationship would eventually lead to love, you would have recommended that they check into the Mental Ailment Facility at St Mungo’s without delay.

Your mind travels back to the day you discovered you would be working with her.

“Are you serious?” you asked your boss.

“I know your relationship is somewhat hostile,” your boss clarified. “However, I’m going to assume that you two are capable of behaving like mature adults now, and also say that you are the two most qualified for the job.”

You sucked on your lip for a thoughtful moment. “How much does the Ministry allocate towards injuries incurred in line of duty?” you finally asked.

Your boss shrugged. “A few million, I suppose, all around. Why?”

“Because you might want to consider asking for more at the next general meeting.”

It started off horribly, as you had predicted. She would yell at you whenever you were late. You would snap at her whenever she criticised your style of working. She would call you lazy and selfish, and you would call her a stuck-up prissy know-it-all bitch straight from broomstick-up-the-arse hell (you personally thought that your insults had much more flair). Your fights were legendary. One time your row ended in her hurling a cafeteria tray packed with food at you, right in the middle of a room full of respectable Ministry officials eating their lunch. You’d never been able to get the smell of cheese and broccoli soup out of that set of robes. 

In short, you hated each other.

But then, eventually, things started to change. You found out about her parents in Australia, and she gradually discovered your reasons for doing what you did in sixth year and why you didn’t do more to save her and her friends during that final year of war. You started to spend more time around one another than was strictly necessary for your work. If you were working until late at night, you’d order in enough food for two. And at lunch time, if there was nobody else in the cafeteria, you’d willingly sit together. And still you claimed to dislike each other. 

Then, one evening, you were at her house clarifying some finer point for your work. You were sitting next to her on her couch, and the discussion was getting somewhat heated.

“Yeah,” you said, “but if we do it that way, then we’ll be completely trivialising the work that past families have done to keep Wizardkind afloat.”

“You’re talking utter rubbish,” she replied. “We’re not disregarding their work at all. We’d instead be acknowledging the other families who haven’t been acknowledged before.”

“But then those original families won’t be seen as so special,” you argue.

“Original families that include yours, of course,” she sighed, throwing her hands into the air. “I swear, sometimes you act as though you only care about making things as good for yourself as possible. You’re such a git, and I … I don’t get it.”

“Don’t get what?” you asked, angrily. “What is there to get? Being a git is hardly a complex enterprise.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t get how you can be such a git, and yet I still … still …”

“Still what?”

She turned toward you, her forehead creased and her hands shaking slightly, but her eyes were determined. “I still can’t stop thinking about you,” she said, and then she was kissing you.

She was sloppy and out-of-practice, but the moment her lips touched yours you felt some baser instinct awaken in you. Suddenly you’re operating by feel and you’re kissing her back; this infuriating, bossy, often downright immature woman, who somehow is also one of the most incredible people you’ve ever met.

Your kisses started off desperate; as though you were starving for each other but had only thirty seconds to get your fill. But then it seemed to register that you had plenty of time and neither of you were going anywhere, and your kisses became slower, softer, and much more intimate. You undressed each other carefully, exploring one another’s bodies, hands running over every area you both realised you’d wanted to touch for some time. You bask in her softness. She basks in … something. You are not sure what.

You carried her to the bedroom, and from then on everything was easy. You responded to one another automatically, as though you had done this dance many times before. She sighed and arched her back when you touched her. You groaned softly when she stroked you. When you pushed into her, you felt her relax under you, as though you’d finally given her something she had been waiting for forever. You thrust against each other, slowly, rhythmically, and despite the pace of it, it didn’t take either of you long at all to reach your climaxes.

You fell on top of her, and despite your weight most probably crushing her, she held you there, squeezing you firmly.

“Do you suppose we can still say we hate each other now?” you asked.

She broke into loud laughter, her body shaking under yours. It was not long before you were joining in.

A stewardess asks you if you would like a drink, and you ask her for orange juice. You would love a glass of wine, but the Healers informed you that alcohol would not mix well with the mountain of pain potions on which you are currently doped up. Since, you figure, you have more of these potions in you than in an apothecary, and you are still in pain, it would probably be best not to disobey the Healers’ instructions.

You suppose you should be grateful, really. Until last week you had not suffered through anything worse than a poorly-swished Jelly Legs Jinx. Others around you had not been so fortunate. People had broken bones, lost limbs (temporarily and permanently), suffered brain damage, gone into comas, become paraplegics, and quite a few had died. The enemy were nasty – that was abundantly clear. They had been trained well, and the amount of times that your side had been taken completely by surprise were too numerous and embarrassing to count. You are eternally grateful for the extensive training you received, both in your country before you went to war and during your first few months on site, for preparing you.

No amount of training could have prepared you for last week, however.

It was the middle of the night, and you were sleeping the sort of deep slumber that is only slept after several consecutive nights of insufficient rest. The sleep you were in was so deep that you did not register being _Mobilicorpus_ ’d up, carried to the enemy base, taken into an empty room and tied to a cold metal table. You only woke up when the first _Crucio_ hit, and even then you could not tell if you were woken by the excruciating pain or by the sound of your own screaming.

A group of five people surrounded you. They wore the uniforms of the enemy you have come to recognise well, but they were rumpled and loose. One of the five was a woman, and her hair was untied; something that would definitely not have been allowed during the day, or indeed during the undergoing of any official duty, regardless of the time. They all looked down at you, the expressions on their faces calm, but barbaric and frightening. And you were tied down and wandless. It was not difficult to see who had the upper hand.

“Ah, the Prince is awake,” one of them commented.

You know better than to engage the enemy in unnecessary conversation, but their term for you gave you pause. “Prince?” you asked.

“We’ve been noticing you,” the girl answered in a surprisingly gentle voice. You half-heartedly noticed that she was quite pretty. “You’ve been flouncing around, with your light hair and impeccable posture. Everything about you screams ‘rich and entitled’. So we did some research on you. You’re the young Malfoy heir, correct?”

You said nothing, so she took it upon herself to yell “ANSWER ME!” into your ear and hit you with the Cruciatus curse again. You screamed, thinking that all you were screaming was gibberish until you heard the word “YES!” coming out of your mouth many times over.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice gentle again as she lifted the curse. You laid there, breathing heavily.

“Tell us, then,” one of the men continued, “why a wealthy Pureblood such as you would fight for a side that wants to take wealth away from other Pureblood families?”

Again, you did not answer straight away, which earned you another bout of the Cruciatus curse. This one was held for slightly longer, and as it was finally lifted you could see the grins on their faces. There was a kind of lust in their smiles that was beyond disturbing. The girl was not looking so pretty anymore.

“It’s not,” you managed to breathe out, despite the pain in your lungs and chest, “it’s not about taking wealth away. It’s about recognising what other families have done. It’s about helping those who have nothing, for no reason except that they aren’t Pureblood.” It occurred to you that you once had a conversation very similar to this, not so long ago.

“Interesting,” said the girl. “What you and your side seem to forget, however, is that when you are not Pureblood, you deserve to have nothing. Or have you forgotten what Muggles did to us in the past?”

She waved her wand, almost lazily, and another _Crucio_ took you over. It was almost too painful to scream now. Thirty agonising seconds later she lifted it and continued talking as though nothing had happened. 

“As I said before, Mr Malfoy, we did our research, and we know that you used to feel the same way. So this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to give you a choice. You can either admit that we are correct, like we think you already know, and you can Apparate back to your own safe little country. Or you can choose not to do that, and we will spend the rest of the night ‘persuading’ you until you agree. And you will agree eventually, Mr Malfoy. We are very, very persuasive.”

Bizarrely, it was the irony of the situation that hit you before anything else. Once again, you were being presented with a choice. Either you could say a few words, run away from this room, this area, this country, and go home. Or you could not say those few words. On paper it sounded like a choice. But you knew better. You knew that it was not a choice at all.

“You can do what you want,” you said, forcing your voice to be strong. “But I’ll never agree with you, ever again. And you will see, eventually, that I am very, very stubborn.”

It sounded cliché, even in your own ears. But at least it got the point across.

“Very well,” said the girl in her sweet voice. Then her voice turned icy and ugly as she aimed her wand at you once again. “Crucio!”

You were in there for hours. At least, you guessed it was hours. It was hard to keep track of the time before too long. They subjected you to Cruciatus Curse after painful Cruciatus Curse, and when they got bored they would hit you with other painful dark curses, before going back to Cruciatus Curses after a while. At one point, one badly-aimed curse hit you in the left shoulder, and you could feel your flesh and muscle disintegrating under the curse’s force. You knew bones had broken, muscles had torn, joints had dislocated. You went into neurogenic shock a few times, which they would notice, use some spell to bring you out of, and then they would fling curses at you anew knowing that you could feel the pain again.

By the time you were found, the five perpetrators had been arrested, and the medics had reached your side, you knew that you were dying. The damage they had inflicted on you was far too great and your body knew it. Your vital organs started to shut down, and your unseeing eyes fluttered closed.

As the darkness swirled around you, beckoning you to come towards it, you heard a faint voice. A voice that was calling, somehow. It was calling you away. Away from the darkness. 

You wished the voice would go away, but it persisted. Eventually, you realised that the voice was not just any voice; it was _hers_.

_Come back_ , it begged you. _I love you, Draco. Come back to me. Come home_.

You longed to hear that voice. You had to hear it again. You had to hear _her_ again. 

And so, you fought. You fought your way toward the voice you love, and soon you could hear it becoming louder, and clearer and firmer, until…

“I … I can’t believe it. He’s alive.”

The following few days are something of a blur to you now. You heard a vague few things about your condition: “badly wounded … he’ll be on Healing Potions for months … he’ll never throw a Quaffle with that shoulder again. Good thing he’s right-handed … way too injured to Apparate home …”. You also heard that the people who had cursed you would be facing prosecution for illegal methods of torture upon another human being. The only really important thing you heard, however, was that you were going back to your country, to stay. This time, whichever way you looked at it, there was no choice.

And you could not be happier.

You look out of your window and see the spectacular view of your country in the morning sun below. Your heart swells with happiness, and as the aeroplane (because that is the name of it, American Muggles be damned) touches down and you hand your passport (another bizarre Muggle thing) to the immigration officer, you feel jittery with anticipation. Your hands are shaking.

You walk through the arrivals gate, and at first you see nothing but swarms of Muggles looking around you, past you, or greeting the people they have come to meet. And then you hear it; the voice that, quite literally, saved you.

“Draco!”

You turn, and there she is. Bushy brown hair, smooth, slightly freckled skin, simple shirt and denim skirt, black ballet flats. She is just like you remember her.

She runs towards you, and before long you are in her arms.

“Hermione,” you croak out, feeling tears of joy in your eyes.

You hear her sniff, and you feel her body shake, but she pulls herself together long enough to say the words you’ve been waiting to hear, from her, for so long.

“Welcome home.”


End file.
